Blog Post

LSE Cohort 2017

Which is the best Idea? It’s My Idea. Any idea that I have is best, said one of our Mentors Dr Prabodh Yelne. A simple thought but why it takes us long time understand this?

Thus, started our journey into Lemon School of Entrepreneurship (LSE) Cohort 2017 on Monday 31st July 2017.

The members of this cohort hailed from various parts of India, of different age groups, each one a different personality with different thought process and different ideas. One thing in common is we all want to do something in life, to be someone, also, with similar set of questions. How to do it? how to begin? And what exactly am I thinking? If my idea is best then what should I do about it?

Well first things first were to know about each other, and so an ice breaking session was conducted by Mr Mukesh Ashar, who in his unique way had us introduced with each other. So, the Journey had begun.

Where Dr Prabodh Yelne explained that no idea is big or small, that every idea is unique in itself and that we should trust ourselves. Dr Deepak Menaria, Chief Idea Farmer, explained that in order to actualize our idea, how we first need to undergo disruption, unlearning and relearning, to hon our skills and also emphasized the importance of experiential learning.

Like having ideas, we also dream. But dreaming big and having larger vision was very well explained by Dr Nikhil Agarwal, Former CEO of Andra Pradesh Innovation society, Govt of Andra Pradesh. Sharing with us his rich experience and live examples he explained us how, good reading, risk taking and making friends, are essential part of an entrepreneur journey. Work by collaboration and not competition is best way to succeed was beautifully explained by him.

Mr Shishir Turkar, mentor account and legal at LSE, explained us that understanding accounting and funding is an important aspect of any venture. In today’s scenario, sure Sir. We all are looking forward for more of his training.

Where all the mentors encouraged us, and made us feel good Mr Dwarika Uniyal, founding faculty member at IIM Kashipur, shook us all up from our pleasant revere. Having idea is good but to understand which idea will be beneficial for society or consumers is of utmost importance for a success of any venture. Truly if your idea is not in sync with consumers needs and do not solve any of their problems, will there be any takers for it?

Dwarika Sir opened our eyes towards understanding the consumer needs and providing its solutions. By this time, we all went into a different zone. This jump started our thinking and with it our excitement to see what more is there in store for us. Had a feeling there is a huge treasure of knowledge and self-awareness in store at LSE Cohort 2017.

Thus, with lots of curiosity and excitement started the second day at LSE. Interaction with Mr Deepak Menaria made us question ourselves, why do we want to become an entrepreneur? why do we feel the need to take a different path rather than the traditional one which has been put forth for us.

A real eye opener towards knowing the deep-down drive which we have to do something for ourselves and betterment of our community.

By having this understanding of ourselves and getting on towards the journey of entrepreneurship is what LSE is all about. By now we had the feeling a lot is about to change, a lot is about to change in us and around us. Should we be excited or what?

Everything starts with knowing ourselves, and a wonderful session with Mr Mukesh Ashar, helped us through it. A simple exercise of expressing ourselves by way of pictures only, took us deep in our conscience. To know the exact basis of our thought so as to reveal it in picture format was an altogether different experience. It’s been said “the best person to have a conversation is with yourself” Yes, so true and Mr Mukesh sir helped us through.

Mr Sanjay Arora, Chair Entrepreneur Marketing at LSE, oriented us towards an equally important aspect of entrepreneurship that is Marketing. More of his guidance to come and we are looking forward to it.

No venture takes off without Funding. this orientation session was taken by Mr Vishal Arora.

What is the weirdest stuff you have ever done in your life? Does any of your professors in college ever ask you this? Doesn’t that define an aspect of yourself? the unique you? But how is it relevant in business development? An intriguing session was taken by Mr Uday Wankawala. Yep, waiting for more.

Innovation kis chidiya ka nam hai. Whats an innovative idea and how do we do it, was beautifully explained by Prof S.Jeyavelu, another session looking forward to.

Is there anything done in todays world without use of technology? Its there in every aspect of your life. How to effectively use it , how to incorporate it in your Ideas and ventures? were the questions answered by Mr Nitin Gujarathi.

And so ended our second day at LSE making us hunger for more, explore more into ourselves and the journey ahead.

When we got to know about LSE, none of us knew what exactly is it. We had many questions, some of us had business ideas but didn’t know how to implement it. Some of us had experienced failures and had lost hope but didn’t want to give up as yet and some simply confused.

So, our journey rightfully started with first and foremost by knowing ourselves, our innermost dreams and desires, knowing our philosophy for life, need to bring some change in world around us. Knowing our strengths and weakness or how to apply SWOT analysis in every aspect of our life. A full day session was taken by Mr Mukesh Ashar, addressing these very concerns. He showed us different aspects of self-analysis. How our weakness can be changed to strengths so as to grab the present opportunity. The exercise helped us reveal many aspects of ourselves which we didn’t know we had or were not sure to express.

A great day spent with lots of insights and of course some homework. So that the training towards self-discipline continues at home.

Now comes the part of experiential learning. To under the consumers psyche, to understand their needs and to understand the market it’s imperative to go out and interact with them. This formed the base of our first action venture ‘Money Multiplier’